


the calm before the storm

by belovedmuerto



Series: An Experiment in Apathy [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: EiE, Gen, John's Gran, and a set of blocks, epic bros hopefully still epic, experiment in empathy, in a field, that big ol' tree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-03
Updated: 2012-09-03
Packaged: 2017-11-13 10:46:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/502678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedmuerto/pseuds/belovedmuerto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John goes for a walk in his head, with his Gran. Or maybe he's just dreaming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the calm before the storm

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I'm starting on the next series.

John walks across a field of waist high wheat that has only ever existed in his mind. It sways around him, rustling and whispering things he can’t understand; he walks through it slowly, almost floating towards the young woman stood waiting for him. He assumes she’s waiting for him, since this safe space only exists in his head. But who knows, really? Perhaps she’s waiting for someone else.

She turns to smile at him as he draws near, and John gasps. She looks just like he remembers his mother looking, that same smile, those same kind eyes. Only her dress is too old fashioned for his hippie mum. And those eyes hold only warmth and kindness, none of the sadness and pain that had always been in his mum’s eyes, even before he’d been able to name or understand them.

“Gran?”

“Hello, John.” She holds her hand out to him as he stops beside her, gaping at her. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I was young once, too. And you’ve gone and grown up completely on me, look at you, I think you’re older here than I am.”

John laughs and takes her hand, and together they start walking again, across the field, toward the great big tree that has always dominated this space. Her grip is strong, yet gentle, and she walks a step or two in front of him, leading him along, always looking forward, towards that tree.

“It’s bigger than I thought it would be,” his grandmother says, voice quiet and full of love. He feels nothing but warmth and affection emanating from her; it’s a welcome respite to, well, the rest of the time, to his waking life, when he has to work to keep the negativity in the world around him out, when he doesn’t get too much warmth or affection except at home--and both are prickly there, unlike this soft affection that feels like slipping into a warm bath.

But thank God for even the prickly sort of affection he gets at home. Else he’d have ended up like his mum, shortly after getting back from Afghanistan, when he’d started to despair.

No time for thoughts like that right now, though.

“It’s grown, actually,” he admits. “Wasn’t always that big.”

“Hmm,” she replies.

“Do you know what that means?”

She doesn’t answer him.

It takes them no time at all to cross the vast field into the shade of the tree. Bees buzz around them all the time, unseen in the wheat, their droning so normal to John at this point as to be unremarkable.

“I don’t remember the bees, John,” Gran observes. She scans the landscape for them; John can’t tell if she’s seeing them or just hearing them.

“No, they’re a more recent addition.”

His Gran opens the gate and steps through, and he follows after her. Something niggles at him, like it should feel different that his Gran is walking around here like she owns the place. But then, she is the one that helped him create it.

And it’s so nice that she’s here, with her steady presence, her calming influence and her love for him.

John isn’t surprised to find the little enclosure crowded with two other people.

There’s a small tow-headed boy toddling about, his feet bare in the sandy earth. He’s playing with a child’s set of building blocks, the set that has always been here.

And there’s a tall man sitting with the child, handing him blocks, helping him build a wall, which the boy promptly kicks over, laughing and clapping. When the boy trips over his own feet, the man helps him back up, brushing sand off his trousers and gentling him when he fusses. He gathers the blocks back into a pile and starts to build again. The boy watches for a moment, two fingers stuck in his mouth, then crowds into the man’s space to plop into his lap, snuggling in close and twisting his free hand in the man’s jacket. Startled, the man looks down at the boy with a blank expression that John knows means he’s surprised, before he goes back to the blocks, making short work of the simple wall.

John and his Gran stand and watch the smaller version of himself and Sherlock quietly.

“He’s quite good with you, isn’t he?” Gran says, leaning close to murmur in his ear.

John smiles. “Yes. He is.”

Sherlock looks up from the miniature John to the adult version, and smiles.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover for An Experiment in Apathy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/586838) by [moonblossom graphics (moonblossom)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonblossom/pseuds/moonblossom%20graphics)




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